Importing CSV data and retaining cell formatting upon refresh

Hi folks,
I'm not so hot with Excel so this is really bugging me. I'm generating a CSV .txt file in Matlab, which I want Excel to automatically import and refresh. That works fine. The data is essentially a summary of astronomical observations at our observatory, with each row representing a new star and columns for the star name, number of spectra, dates of observation etc. I may add more columns later. The data is in alphabetical order by star name.

I want to be able to format this data and add comments in columns off to the side. These comments would be particular to each star, and it would be ideal if they can span multiple columns and perhaps go underneath the star as well. The problem comes when I re-run my Matlab code to refresh the summary data. If we've recently observed a star that we have not taken spectra of before, more likely than not the new star will be inserted in the middle of everything else (because of alphabetical order), which throws off all my formatting (which is tied to the cell itself, rather than the contents of that cell). I have attached an image of what I want to be able to do, and to still preserve the "correct" location of formatting and comments when new rows of data are added.

Screen Shot 2012-12-04 at 11.51.11 AM.jpg

If anyone can offer some help on how to sort this out that would be fantastic. Thanks!

Edit: note that for people familiar with Matlab, I am aware of the xlswrite function which would most likely work. However the solution needs to be compatible with Linux / Mac, and xlswrite is Windows only.